1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a cross flow fan, and more particularly to a cross flow fan applicable but not limited to a panel meter of a fitness equipment, and the cross flow fan and its housing are made of a plastic material.
2. Description of the Related Art
As exercisers often sweat a lot when working on fitness equipments, it is delightful to have steady cool air blowing directly at the exercisers while they are doing exercises. Referring to FIG. 1 for a conventional treadmill machine M, the treadmill machine M includes an axial flow fan installed separately on both sides of a panel meter, and the airflow direction of this type of fan is parallel to the axle. In other words, air is flowing upward instead of blowing directly at an exerciser on the treadmill machine, and such arrangement obviously requires improvements.
Referring to FIGS. 2 and 3 for schematic views of a conventional cross flow fan assembly, the assembly comprises a housing 11, a motor 12 and a cross flow fan 13. The inventor of the present invention attempts to install a conventional cross flow fan 10 in a panel meter of a treadmill machine to replace the traditional axial flow fan F, but the following drawbacks are still found in its testing procedure:
1. The housing 11 and the cross flow fan 13 of the structure of a conventional cross flow fan 10 are made of metal plates, and the housing 11 is manufactured by stamping, riveting and coupling at least four metal plates. With the weight limitation, the metal plates cannot be too thick, and thus the structural strength of the assembled housing 11 is poor.
2. More importantly, the cross flow fan 13 is made by riveting and coupling metal plates and metal pillars. As shown in FIGS. 2 and 2A, over ten metal vanes 131 are embedded into the metal panels 132, 133 having grooves disposed on left and right sides, and then the middle of the left metal panel 132 is riveted with a bushing 133 connected to an axle 121 of the motor 12, and the middle of the right metal panel 134 is riveted with a center shaft 135. After a center shaft 135 is sheathed into a sleeve 14, the center shaft 135 is installed to the housing 11 by an axial positioning base 15. However, most of these cross flow fans 10 are made of metals, and most of the connections are achieved by stamping, riveting and welding, and thus the manufacture is more complicated, and the required streamline design cannot be achieved easily. If the cross flow fan 13 is driven by the motor 12 to rotate transversally in the x-x direction as shown in FIG. 3, and the length L of the cross flow fan 11 is slender, the circularity of the riveted metal vanes 131 will be affected, and the operation of the fan will become unsmooth, and thus such fan is not suitable to be installed in the panel meter of the fitness equipment. Although the problems created by the metal material and its rivet connection do not affect the usage of industrial products, yet the prior art is not suitable to be used in a panel meter installed with precision electronic components.
In view of the shortcomings of the prior art, the inventor of the present invention based on years of experience in the related industry to conduct extensive researches and experiments, and finally developed a stable cross flow fan for a fitness equipment to overcome the aforementioned shortcomings.